'a Great Effusion of Blood'?

Mark D. Meyerson is an associate professor of History and Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto.Daniel Thiery is an associate professor at Iona College.Oren Falk is an associate professor of History at Cornell University.

• ContributorsAbbreviations IntroductionMark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery, and Oren FalkPART I: VIOLENCE AND IDENTITY FORMATION1 Violence and the Making of WiglafJohn M. Hill2 Defending Their Masters’ Honour: Slaves as Violent Offenders in Fifteenth-Century ValenciaDebra Blumenthal3 The Murder of Pau de Sant Martí: Jews, Conversos, and the Feud in Fifteenth-Century ValenciaMark D. Meyerson4 Violence and the Sacred City: London, Gower, and the Rising of 1381Eve Salisbury5 Bystanders and Hearsayers First: Reassessing the Role of the Audience in DuellingOren Falk 6 Scottish National Heroes and the Limits of ViolenceAnne MckimPART II: VIOLENCE AND THE TESTAMENT OF THE BODY7 Seeing the Gendering of Violence: Female and Male Martyrs in the  South English Legendary Beth Crachiolo8 Violence or Cruelty? An Intercultural PerspectiveDaniel Baraz9 Body as Champion of Church Authority and Sacred Place: The Murder of Thomas BecketDawn Marie Hayes10 Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale: Interrogating ‘Virtue’ through ViolenceM.C. Bodden11 Violence, the Queen’s Body, and the Medieval Body PoliticJohn Carmi Parsons12 Violence in the Early Robin Hood Poems 268Richard Firth Green13 Canon Laws regarding Female Military Commanders up to the Time of Gratian: Some Texts and Their Historical ContextsDavid HayConclusionMark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery, and Oren Falk

‘A worthwhile volume that needs to be reckoned with in discussions of how violence means in medieval society.’- Christine M. Rose (Arthuriana) ‘Collections like ‘A Great Effusion of Blood?’ help us to better understand the historical and often inextricably tragic connections between violence and the state, between violence and the law, and between violence and moral relations.’- Eileen A. Joy (The Sixteenth Century Journal) ‘A timely collection of important research on very different aspects of medieval violence.’- Dianne Hall (Parergon) ‘What we learn from a volume as diverse as ‘A Great Effusion of Blood’? is not only the ubiquity of violence in the Middle Ages but its varied purposes and meaning.’- Scott L. Waugh (University of Toronto Quarterly)